Market Street Place will be a six-level, urban retail redevelopment project featuring an exterior façade of translucent glass that will serve as a window into the shopping experience inside. A creation by Gensler’s San Francisco architectural team, the design provides for enhanced streetscape improvements around the building, prominent street presence for retailers and a large, open floor plan with clear heights up to 17 feet on the ground floor. The planned interior finishes include natural stone, glass wall systems, stainless steel accent finishes, progressive lighting, and creative art installations to foster a welcoming environment for the diverse community.

In addition to fashion, the building has drawn interest from grocery, sporting goods and furniture stores as well as entertainment use. The fourth and fifth floors – the top story will have 18-foot ceiling, balconies and views – could work as a combination of food and entertainment, [Cypress CEO, Chris Maguire] said, and a group that builds bowling alleys has looked at the plans, as has a cinema developer.

Another possibility is a gourmet food hall similar to Chelsea Market or Eataly in New York.

Emphasis ours.

Construction of the 250,000 square foot development to rise on the south side of Market Street between Fifth and Sixth streets will take around two years. The site has been a dirt lot since early 2013.

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Comments from “Plugged-In” Readers

Just what the city needs! More retail space to create more jobs to create more demand for housing! All because it’s too damn onerous to build the high-density mixed-used residential towers the city needs along these major transit corridors. I am not opposed to adding retail space, but only if it sits right below at least twice as much new residential square footage.

Gotta love it when folks pay too much attention to lines on a map. SF is not the “14th” city in anything but legalese. The Bay Area is the 4th or 5th, depending on where you want to draw the lines, and SF is the undeniable center of the region.

Not every new development needs to be residential; there’s already a ton of new residential housing being built in the area. What it needs now are services for those new residences (i.e. a grocery store).

In conjunction with all of these developments on this Market St block wish there were a vision for activating Stevenson alley; has a lot of potential as a pedestrian only. Would hate to see it end up only being service entrances and the like. With the expected influx of housing and workers, now’s the time to finalize a plan a 10-20 year vision for an interesting alley. Separately what’s happening with Hibernia building (McAll/Market)? (Would like to see a shimmery glassy fab 25 story tower land on the historic structure)

A mid-block pedestrian pass through here form Market to Stevenson should have been a requirement for this to get by planning. The block from 5th to 6th is too long, both on Market but especially stevenson.

Unless there is a change from some of the older articles out there, this site is zoned C-3-G (Downtown General Commercial) and C-3-R (Downtown Retail) Zoning Districts and the 120-X Height and Bulk District, but the project is only going 94 feet .

My wish , that the building was going the full 120 Height , that the 1st 2 floors were mostly retail , and that every thing from the 3rd floor up would be Apartments

I’d love to live above a shopping mall. What in the world would be bad about that? Just got back from Tokyo this week, and basically all of the most prime real estate is directly atop shopping malls and/or train stations.

The insane are those that want to live secluded from society at the end of some mundane cul-de-sac.

Uh, Market Street is not Paris, Tokyo, Fifth Avenue or Michigan Avenue. There is a BIG difference between living above the premier boulevards of those cities and Market Street which still contains many problems. Still, here is to hoping to a better future for Market and the possibility that it will one day be as desirable a those other cities.

Please define Paris. I know a Paris with posh and influential people, but I also know a Paris with pimps, addicts, squats and worse. The reality is in between and most retail has housing sitting on top and it’s not about being fancy, but simply a necessity. My building has a japanese restaurant, a kebab place and a temp agency on the ground floor. Another building where I owned a place had a coffee roaster and a perfume shop, as well as an under-the-radar chinese cooking outfit. Not really the upscale things everyone’s fantasizing about. Then again, our US vision of Paris is actually 25% tops of the actual Paris.

lol at Michigan Ave being compared to Paris, Tokyo, or Fifth Ave. The Union Square area has a whole lot more in common with Michigan Ave than Michigan Ave has in common with three of the four alpha cities of the world (did you forget to compare Chicago to London? LOL.)

No, what is funny is comparing Market Street to London or Paris. As usual, the point is missed on provincial San Francisco.
BTW-condos above Michigan Avenue are far more desirable than above Market Street, but of course you would not know that either. The discussion is about Market Street, AND, sorry, Market Street is no Michigan Avenue, which has more [alpha] museums, hotels, residences and shops than the entire Bay Area.

800 N. MichiganCorner of Michigan and Walton
Or try 900 North Michigan. And I have not TOUCHED the new Ritz Carlton Tower (1br are now over 1 million), Water Tower Place, Trump or others. Strangely enough, the iconic Hancock Tower has some rather “affordable” units but they have high HOA. All these towers have shops below WHICH IS WHAT THE DISCUSSION WAS ABOUT.

But you seemed to be trapped in the provincial mindset that the only city tiny little San Francisco wants to think it is similar to is Paris or London? Sorry, as a city San Francisco has a lot of growing up to do, and so does Market Street, which is still “the home of the homeless” according to a recent SFGate article. Get a good transit system, clean up the streets, and build Market Street up with real towers of architectural distinction and call me in 10 years and I will perhaps change my mind about Market Street.

Now if you want to talk about property north of California Street from Presidio Heights to Russian Hill, there is nothing outside of Manhattan to compete with those psf prices and nothing in America as beautiful as the northern neighborhoods of San Francisco imho. (That’s why I own in 94123)

And no, of course SF is not in any way comparable to London or Paris. You were the one that claimed that Chicago was.

My only claim was that SF and Chicago were closer to peer cities than Chicago and Paris/London/NY/Tokyo. I still stand by that claim – both SF and Chicago are not even in the same ballpark as those four cities. Chicago homers tend to think otherwise.

Correct, I was responding to a different comments not made by you about Tokyo and Paris. My outrage was that someone thought that Market Street could ever in any way be similar to living above shops in Tokyo or Paris. BTW-was in Tokyo two months ago and am still in awe of how organized and clean their transit is. Somehow Tokyo made MUNI and even BART feel Third World by comparison.

Also agree, San Francisco AND Chicago are NO NYC, Paris, London, Tokyo or even Los Angeles. (Gasp!)
But I still like San Francisco best.

The trouble is, there are so many luxury towers on Michigan Avenue I don’t know which commands the highest psf cost. Can you say the same for Market Street? Trust me, I took a lot more pride showing my European and Asian friends downtown Chicago than I do showing them Market Street and parts of the Civic Center. They LOVE the Marina, GG Park and Napa however.

Ritz Carlton Residences (This is on Michigan but has side address)
As for the Four Seasons (900 North Michigan with condo entrance at 77 East Walton) ..I’ll let you do your homework.

But don’t you think it is sad that Market could not have the vibrancy, shops, restaurants, and safety of Michigan Avenue? And comparing Market to a street with the Hancock, Trump and other towers as well as the Art Institute and Symphony Hall is just silly. You need to travel my friend.

The only thing that was absurd was that somehow living above shops on Market Street would be similar to Paris. (see earlier discussion I was responding to)
I think what is absolutely nuts is that San Franciscans, who are mostly transplants from a somewhere else that is usually suburban, begin to think that this city is “European” which it is not. There is nothing European about Market Street, especially architecturally, or in civic ways (crime, safety, street life, cleanliness)

And honestly, if your civic pride blinds you from seeing that Michigan Avenue is one of the world’s great civic boulevards we should emulate and has a world famous collection of architecture lining it’s length, I think that is “nuts”. But I must be excused for I am an architect and I fall in love with cities partially because of the buildings they contain. San Francisco is unique because of its natural setting (topography, climate, bay, etc) but our built environment needs a lot of help before we start throwing around Paris, London and Tokyo.

Agreed, when combined with San Jose, we become one Anon’s “big boys” too. But I would also say provincial “anon” never let’s facts get in the way of prejudice, and was alarmed that Chicago might have a better civic signature boulevard, then claimed Chicago condos on that boulevard were not as expensive ( false), then would only accept comparison to the Four Seasons tower, then said that Chicago was not in the big league (false), and now we need to include much larger San Jose in our orbit, even though when talking about density or wealth, we then exclude San Jose or the East Bay. All because someone will not admit Market Street is a mess and other American cities have better organized versions of what Market Street was at one time.

We weren’t talking about GDP, and regardless, the methodology used for metro areas in that pdf is outrageously biased towards American cities. New York’s GDP higher than Tokyo’s? LOL. Only if you lop off a third of Tokyo’s 36 million metro population, as the report does. Similarly, it uses a metro definition of Paris that if applied to Chicago would trim Chicago by more than half.

Again, Chicago and SF are in the same league as cities go. Sure, you can claim that Chicago has a better “signature boulevard” (whatever that’s worth to you), but the constant Chicago boosterism on this site trying to claim that it belongs in the same class of cities as New York, Paris, London, and Tokyo are absolutely nuts. It gets very tiring.

The whole stupid thing started because someone got their skirt ruffled that that one city was included in a list of cities that did a brilliant job of getting grand boulevards right, and the insulted anon distracted the discussion from about Market street to about who gets to be an alpha city. Interesting that nobody has yet come to the defense of Market Street.

FORGET about other cities since we’re so perfect and please do tell how wonderful Market Street is and how much other great alpha cities can learn from our beautiful main boulevard sometimes referred to “the Champs Elysees of the West”. Market Street is an urban jewel and the retail stores and architecture and people who use the street reflect how magnificent it is. Other alpha cities (and sad non-alpha cities) must be envious of our good fortune.

No, the whole thing started when the typical Chicago boosters blanketed this site with their usual “San Francisco needs to do things like the great cities of the world, Chicago and Paris, or maybe lesser cities like Tokyo and New York”.

San Francisco is a third tier global city at best, ALONG with Chicago. The constant Chicago boosterism doesn’t change this. San Francisco has more upside currently, but both belong in the same conversation as Boston and Washington, not higher tier cities like New York and Los Angeles.

I’m not sure I agree with this theory but my parents claim Market Street never recovered after the closure during the building of BART/MUNI tunnels. Is that because the stores could not survive during the long street closure, or because everyone is now underground ? They also claimed there was no homeless in the Civic Center until the closure of streets to traffic. One thing I would say is this building should have housing on top and perhaps some parking underneath.